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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694408">and icarus' life, it has only just begun</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide'>sayonide</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Life Is Strange (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, chloe isn't a very happy bean</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:49:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,465</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694408</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything goes right. Her wings grow in when they're supposed to, her dad's as amazing as ever, and she's met a girl she's convinced will be her best friend for the whole of eternity.</p>
<p>A few years later, they're all gone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and icarus' life, it has only just begun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>au where at the age of 5-10 you start growing wings. literally nothing else is changed.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chloe Price is five years old when her wings start growing. She throws herself out of bed, sprinting to her parents' room and bouncing as she pulls on their covers.</p>
<p>"Dad!" she cries out.</p>
<p>"Dad, they're here!"</p>
<p>He's overworked. He's tired. But when it comes to his daughter, waking up at 3 am for the arrival of her wings is worth it. </p>
<p>William laughs.</p>
<p>"Well, you better sleep well tonight so they grow right!" he teases, and she giggles, turning around again to scamper back to her room. It's just a stupid old story he tells to scare her, but for her dad, she'd pretend all her life that the "stupid old stories" are true.</p>
<p>_ </p>
<p>The next day, she meets her best friend.</p>
<p>Max Caulfield is curled up under the bridge, barely four years old, and when Chloe sees her, she picks the only reasonable solution to seeing a dirty, completely still form under a bridge.</p>
<p>She gets onto her hands and knees and crawls under.</p>
<p>"Hello?" she calls out, and the form tenses, curling tighter.</p>
<p>She waits for a few seconds, before</p>
<p>"Is anyone home?"</p>
<p>A small murmur from the other person.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"I said leave me alone."</p>
<p>With a little hesitation, Chloe crawls a bit closer.</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>The kid twists away a little.</p>
<p>"Leave me alone!"</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>Finally, she looks up, and with some sadness Chloe notes the redness of her eyes.</p>
<p>"What're you gonna do to me? What else can you do? Go away! Tell those other meanies to go away too!"</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>"What if I got an adult? My daddy's real nice. He'll fight those kids. I'll fight them too! Daddy says I'm still small, but I'm big and tough and I'll fight whoever hurt you!" She offers, trying not to show too much desperation.</p>
<p>She fails, of course, but the other kid frowns up at her.</p>
<p>"Your daddy can't hurt me. Mine will fight him. He says he can't hurt kids but he'll hurt their moms n' dads if they hurt me!"</p>
<p>After a moment, Chloe thinks. And then:</p>
<p>"My name's Chloe. They're not gonna hurt you with me around, I promise! I'll fight the meanies. I'll teach you how to hurt them back!"</p>
<p>She holds out a hand, and tries not to notice how hard the other's is shaking as she reaches out too.</p>
<p>"Ok. I'm Max. I mean, I'm Max-ine, but I don't like Maxine. So I'm Max."</p>
<p>A grin spreads across Chloe's face.</p>
<p>"Awesome!"</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>"Does it hurt?"</p>
<p>The question wasn't exactly unexpected; Max, at the age of eight, still somehow hadn't started growing hers yet, but Chloe was nine years old and her wings were getting bigger right along with her, maybe even faster. It had actually taken much longer than expected for her to finally ask.</p>
<p>The part that wasn't expected was <em>when</em> she chose to ask. Instead of waiting until they were watching TV, or in one of their rooms, Max wanted to ask her <em>in the middle of class.</em></p>
<p>"Max! Shh!" She whispered.</p>
<p>Max frowned at her, and turned to face the front again.</p>
<p>For about five seconds.</p>
<p>Before long, she was leaning back over and whispering, yet again:</p>
<p>"Did they hurt?"</p>
<p>This time, Chloe gripped her shoulder - lightly, though. Everything was careful when it came to Max - and pushed her away, right back upright. </p>
<p>Ten minutes later, the recess bell rang.</p>
<p>Max grabbed her arm as soon as it did, pulling her outside.</p>
<p>"Did it hurt?" She demands.</p>
<p>
  <em>Demands.</em>
</p>
<p>Despite the shaking of her arm, a casualty of the amount of bouncing Max was doing, she almost smiled. Max was becoming less and less shy every day.</p>
<p>Finally, she remembered why her arm was shaking so much.</p>
<p>"No," she answered. "It doesn't hurt, but it feels weird. Like pushing."</p>
<p>Max somehow frowned harder.</p>
<p>"Pushing?"</p>
<p>She nodded.</p>
<p>"Like, pushing on your back, and it feels like you're gonna cough, but then you don't and it doesn't really go away but then you stop feeling like you wanna cough and then there's feathers, and that's how you know there's wings growing."</p>
<p>Max let go of her arm now and reached up, and Chloe let her, knowing exactly where she was going. And like she had done maybe a bazillion times before, Max smoothed her fingers into Chloe's wings and stroked the feathers, and Chloe pretended like it didn't make her want to fall asleep.</p>
<p>"They're smooth," she noted again.</p>
<p>Yeah, Chloe thought. They're smooth. Don't stop.</p>
<p>_ </p>
<p>It's Max's 12th birthday, and she's starting to seem a little... bitter. She'd never admit it to Chloe, but she can tell. Every time Max looks over to her wings, or runs her fingers through them when she thinks Chloe's asleep.</p>
<p>She's angry. Everyone else in her grade already has wings. Her parents were never helpful; they just call her a late bloomer, laughing at her anger, telling her that it was normal, they'd grow in.</p>
<p>But it's undeniable to the pair. Something was wrong. </p>
<p>They always wanted to know, but never really made plans for it in seriousness. When Max came running into her arms one day after class, though, sobbing so hard that she could barely breathe, Chloe swore to find out why. Nothing, not even some unfair cosmic source, would make her cry this hard without facing the consequences.</p>
<p>The next night that they didn't have a sleepover, Chloe sneaks out for the first time in her life.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>"Just like I thought," she mutters. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."</p>
<p>Chloe hops onto the bed on a clear spot.</p>
<p>"Well, maybe there's something there?"</p>
<p>Max shakes her head, not even looking up.</p>
<p>"Nothing. Either the doctor didn't write it down, or maybe I just screwed something up so bad that they're not growing in."</p>
<p>Chloe looks down at the bed, and it's enough to make Max look over.</p>
<p>"It's okay," she says. </p>
<p>"It's not."</p>
<p>"It's really alright."</p>
<p>"It's not."</p>
<p>"I have you, Chloe. That's more than enough."</p>
<p>"It's <em>not.</em>"</p>
<p>Max comes closer and presses into her side.</p>
<p>"It's okay. You're more than enough."</p>
<p>And Chloe looks down.</p>
<p>And she realizes how much she's fallen for this girl pressed up against her side.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>When she's fourteen, her world falls apart.</p>
<p>First goes her dad. Her light. </p>
<p>She sits on her floor, Max's arms around her, and not even that makes her look up.</p>
<p>He's gone.</p>
<p>Forever.</p>
<p>The week after, she comes home from the funeral to a tape left on her ground.</p>
<p><em>I'm sorry,</em> it reads.</p>
<p>Halfway through, she wants to cut off her wings. No better time, right? Her reasons for being proud of them are gone. </p>
<p>She keeps them. Against her will, she doesn't just slice them off.</p>
<p>(Not for the lack of trying.)</p>
<p>She should have savored it, having her mom hold her so close, comfort her. It's the last of it she'll feel in a while.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>She's fifteen years old and nothing feels real anymore. Her mom remarried. Remarried to an asshole. Somehow, she had gone from her dad to this man. This drill sergeant of a man, obsessed with discipline.</p>
<p>Fuck his discipline.</p>
<p>Fuck him.</p>
<p>(Wait, but her mom is already.)</p>
<p>_ </p>
<p>When she's sixteen, she's dragged to some mill party. Dirty as hell, in some back-alley place that she wouldn't trust with anything. </p>
<p>She blacks out somewhere after being led to the basement, someone tossing bottle after bottle of alcohol at her.</p>
<p>When she wakes up, something feels wrong. Emptier, almost, thought it's hard to tell how.</p>
<p>The bustling of her mom downstairs makes her groan, and she curls into her blankets, gripping the blankets and using it to press her ear tighter into-</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>Her wings.</p>
<p>They're gone.</p>
<p>A distant part of her wants to cry. It should be a big deal.</p>
<p>She can't really give a shit.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>She meets Rachel Amber a few months before she turns seventeen. Fifteen years old, it takes her nearly three months to ask Chloe where her wings are.</p>
<p>She's pretty grateful it took that long.</p>
<p>Still, the weird face that Rachel pulls when she just says "I dunno, lost it at some party last year" makes her want to say it was just a joke, and spin a tale about where and how she lost them.</p>
<p>Rachel's wings are sleek, pressed against her back most of the time, taking up so little space that it's like they're not there until she shifts one of them. When she does, the dazzling white never fails to take Chloe's breath away.</p>
<p>One night, laying there staring up at the stars on her ceiling, Chloe wonders about Max. Have her wings grown in? How is she? Living it up in Seattle, no doubt. She's probably found friends already, friends who are way better than Chloe could ever be. Smart and stable and interested in everything she has to say.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>She's eighteen and Rachel seems to have a new past time: running her hands over the stumps where Chloe's wings used to be. Weirdly, they've grown alongside her, the area around them fluffy and soft, the old smattering of down right between her shoulder-blades still there without the wings to push them out. </p>
<p>It doesn't hurt, so she just kinds of let Rachel do whatever. It does get a little weird when Rachel looks for any opportunity to do it, though. </p>
<p>_</p>
<p>When she's nineteen, Rachel goes missing. </p>
<p>She lays in bed at night, remembering when there'd be a warm body next to her and hands stroking through the feathers on her back. They always slept next to each other; if someone had to sneak out for it to happen, then so be it.</p>
<p>Now, though, there was nothing but coldness and fear. The last thing Rachel had texted her was two days ago, three short small, heartbreaking sentences.</p>
<p>
  <em>Don't worry about me. I found someone. We're getting out of here.</em>
</p>
<p>Maybe she was already out. Rachel always deserved better than Arcadia. </p>
<p>She always deserved better than Chloe, too. Everyone did. Good on her for realizing it.</p>
<p>(That doesn't stop it from hurting. Two days later, she goes to bed with a bloody nose and bruises everywhere. David seems concerned, and it would be relieving if she cared.)</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>Max reappears, and she wants to be angry. A part of her is, but she looks at her old friend, small and still clutching that old camera and <em>still</em> without wings, and she can't help but feel a bit of a pity for her. </p>
<p>But she knows Max is staring at her back. At where her wings are supposed to be. A few minutes later, in her room, Nosy Max is back as she remembers.</p>
<p>"What happened to your wings?" She asks. Chloe just shrugs. </p>
<p>"Sixteen. Party. Mill. Shit happens." </p>
<p>She opened up to Rachel. Past-her would have told Max everything, but present-her is here now, and present-her is heartbroken and angry, mostly at herself for <em>not</em> being angrier at Max.</p>
<p>But it still comes out, and she fucks it up like always.</p>
<p>"What happened to your wings?" She shoots back, more mocking than she'd ever like. The sentence isn't even fully out of her mouth before she regrets it, especially at the look on Max's face.</p>
<p>A few seconds later, though, Max recovers enough to say, simply, "Gene stuff. Never gonna happen."</p>
<p>Okay. So maybe that intrigues her a little. Just a little.</p>
<p>"But... your parents?"</p>
<p>Wrong question. Again. Max drops her gaze then, half-glaring at the floor.</p>
<p>"Didn't affect them. Didn't affect anyone before me."</p>
<p>Chloe whistles a little. "Lucky strike, eh."</p>
<p>She spends the day saying all the wrong things. Maybe she was wrong, all those times she'd wished Max was back home with her. Maybe Max really was better off in Seattle.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>The storm is coming.</p>
<p>The storm is coming and all she can think about is how many times she'd taken people for granted. How many times something's happened and she just couldn't give any shits.</p>
<p>The storm is coming and Chloe isn't numb anymore.</p>
<p>The storm is coming and she kind of wants to die.</p>
<p>Of course, Max could rewind it all away.</p>
<p>And of course, she won't do it.</p>
<p>She begs.</p>
<p>"Chloe, I can't do this."</p>
<p>Can't she see? Chloe wants to die. It's not an inconvenience for anyone but Max, having to go back in time and get another headache.</p>
<p>While Max is thinking, she looks out to the tornado coming their way.</p>
<p>Rachel. She knows it's Rachel. It has to be her. </p>
<p><em>Rachel's my angel,</em> she'd said. </p>
<p>Max had looked away, back at the photo, and Chloe pretended not to see her eyes tracing Rachel's wings, opened and curled around them.</p>
<p>She wonders, then, how many times she'd made Max feel like shit. Because maybe she left. Maybe she wasn't perfect, but she got out, and came back to their shitty little town.</p>
<p>Maybe it wasn't for Chloe, but for the education she deserved. </p>
<p>It was expected. </p>
<p>Either way, Max was always her angel. It wasn't a coincidence. They met the day after Chloe's wings started growing, and separated right before they got torn off.</p>
<p>Max was her angel.</p>
<p>Not Rachel.</p>
<p>Not Rachel, who left.</p>
<p>Not Rachel, who abandoned her. Maybe she was dead now, but it didn't change the fact that she was about to just <em>leave</em>, sharing their plan and their life with some random guy who just happened to, what? Have a better car? Be a better fuck?</p>
<p>No. Max was always the one they didn't deserve, and here she was, having <em>trouble</em> over deciding if she should save an entire town versus Chloe's worthless ass.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>She didn't save the town. She <em>didn't save the town.</em></p>
<p>In the decision between <em>save Chloe </em>and <em>save Arcadia</em>, she chose Chloe.</p>
<p>Max might have gotten worse marks in elementary, but she was in no way stupid. This, however, was possibly the dumbest thing she'd ever done. </p>
<p>But she couldn't say that now. They were in Chloe's truck, and as she drove away, Max was just kind of sitting there. Hyperventilating. </p>
<p>"What- uh. What's up?" She asks, lets go of the wheel with a hand, drapes it over Max's shoulder, and fuck. How bad at basic comfort could she be? </p>
<p>"I almost lost you," and no, that's not right. That can't be right. But even Chloe, emotionally fucked up Chloe, can realize that it's not the time, and she tugs her a little closer on the bench seat.</p>
<p>"Sorry," she offers, and shaking, through tears, Max shakes her head with that same, familiar ferocity. </p>
<p>"I'd do it again."</p>
<p>And there's not much she can offer in response to that. So she stays silent, keeps an arm tucked around her, and drives far, far away.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>let yourself have the things you deserve. and you deserve happiness. <br/>you're so much more than enough.</p>
<p>i was gonna do a pun for the title but i guess not?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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